These Days
by darkblack03
Summary: A compilation of one-shots for Cheeky Slytherin Lass's So you think you can write competition. T for not being sure what is in store later and because I'm paranoid. Second place! :D
1. Chapter 1

The summer days were warm and for the Weasley-Potters, most of them were spent with family and good friends. This was one of these days when they had the whole gang together once again.

All of the Weasley children and grandchildren were present in the cozy backyard of the Burrow. James and Albus were zooming around in the treetops on their broomsticks while Lily, Rose, and Hugo tried to chase them on foot. Victoire held a wailing Louis while attempting to talk to Teddy, who was attempting to calm the small boy down. Dominique sat under a tree drawing something. Lucy and Molly had both retreated into their own little book-worlds. Fred and Roxanne had made a game of seeing how many items they could take from the adults before one of them noticed.

The family had also invited Luna and her husband Rolf and they had brought their twins, Lysander and Lorcan. Lorcan stayed mostly by his mother's side, but Lysander had ventured away from the safety of her shadow and had walked over to Dominique.

"Watcha' drawing?" He asked, peering over her shoulder, "It looks kind of like…. An ugly butterfly…"

Dominique looked insulted, "It's an iris. A type of flower."

"Oh… pretty flower, but an ugly butterfly."

"It wasn't supposed to be a butterfly!" Dominique said.

"It's still and ugly butterfly." Lysander insisted.

Dominique glared at him for a long while and finally pinched his arm.

"Ow!"

She pinched him again and continued to pinch him

"Ow, ow, ow!" Lysander squeaked, "Okay, okay! I surrender! It's a flower! Not an ugly butterfly!"

Dominique gave a satisfied smirk and went back to drawing her flower. Lysander sat next to her and watched as she finished it.

It soon got dark and Mrs. Weasley called the family to dinner. It was total chaos, as expected from the very large Weasley family. Lysander once again ventured from his mother's side and sat by Dominique.

"What did you do with the ugly butterfly?" He asked her, bouncing in his seat.

"It's not an ugly butterfly! How many times do I have to tell you that?" Dominique said angrily, "And I gave it to my mother. _She_ understood what it was!"

"Okay, okay, sorry." Lysander grinned at her.

Dominique huffed and turned away from him.

The summers passed quickly and soon after Dominique grew to enjoy hanging out with Lysander rather than her cousins or siblings.

"Are you coming?" Lysander asked as he walked past her.

"Where?" She asked, looking up from what she'd been doing.

Lysander threw a towel at her and she caught it.

"I'm going swimming." He said with a grin.

"We don't have anywhere to swim." Dominique was confused.

"We do if you know where to look." Lysander gave her an enigmatic smile and Dominique's curiosity got the best of her. She stood and started to follow.

"Hang on." Lysander took the towel from her and put it around her eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Do you trust me?" He whispered in her ear. An involuntary shiver went up her spine.

"Yes." She breathed.

"Good. Then let me lead you there. I can't have you knowing the location of my secret swimming hole."

"So _you_ don't trust _me_?" She demanded, stepping as carefully as possible as Lysander began to steer her in what seemed like a random direction.

"I never said that. It's simply protocol."

"For your secret swimming hole?"

"Precisely." Lysander didn't explain any further, but continued to steer her around obstacles invisible to her beneath the towel.

After a long while of walking, he released her.

"Can I take off this blindfold now?" She asked.

"Go ahead."

Dominique removed the towel from around her eyes to find herself in front of a lovely little lake nestled in the shelter of the woods. She gazed in wonder at the sparkling waters, amazed that she hadn't known of its existence before.

Suddenly, something brushed past her. She jumped, and then realized Lysander had just run past her. He jumped onto a rope dangling from a tree limb and swung himself into the lake. He landed with a splash that made Dominique wince.

Lysander surfaced quickly, laughing.

"You're crazy!" She shouted at him.

"Now you tell me I'm crazy. That's nothing that I didn't know." Lysander gave her a grin, "Now come on in, the water's fine!"

Dominique hesitated, A, because she didn't have a swimsuit on and B, because she wasn't sure exactly what she was doing alone in the middle of the woods with Lysander Scamander.

"I will come up there." Lysander threatened.

Still Dominique hesitated. Lysander climbed out of the water.

"What are you doing?" She asked suspiciously. She was suddenly all too aware that he was not wearing a shirt.

He rewarded her with another grin, and then gave her a soaking-wet bear hug.

"Lysander!" She squealed.

He picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. She could feel her face growing red as she was pressed against his bare back.

"Lysander, stop it!"

Lysander simply laughed as he readjusted his grip on her and threw her into the water.

"Ah!" Her scream was cut off when she fully went underwater. She surfaced as quickly as possible.

"Oh, god! It's _freezing!_"

"Watch out!" Lysander called as he jumped in once more.

Despite herself, Dominique found that she couldn't stop herself from grinning at Lysander's antics.

"Marco!" He called, closing his eyes and paddling around blindly.

"Polo." She giggled. He swum towards her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Gotcha." He whispered.

"You got me." She laughed.

"What would you do if I did this…?" Lysander pressed his lips against the skin of her neck.

Dominique blushed, "L-Lysander…"

"What about this?" His lips moved a bit higher to the base of her jaw.

She blushed even brighter, but she didn't stop him.

"You're warm." He whispered. Dominique vaguely wondered if he was joking, but her mind was too scrambled to follow that train of thought through. When Lysander finally pulled away from her, she almost sank, forgetting that she had to tread the water to stay afloat.

"Sorry." Lysander said, glancing away.

"N-no… It's okay I guess…" Dominique glanced away too.

"Are you alright? You look kind of red. Maybe we should head back…"

Dominique just nodded, though at what she did not know. Lysander helped her out of the water and grabbed her abandoned towel from the ground, wrapping it around her. Dominique stumbled slowly after him as he gently led her back towards the Burrow.

She tripped over a protruding tree root, but her grip on Lysander's hand stopped her from falling over. Lysander noticed the jerk and caught her, even though it wasn't entirely necessary.

"Are you alright Dominique?"

She nodded quickly, but he didn't seem convinced. He put a hand on her forehead, as if feeling for a temperature, which made her face go even redder.

"Are you dizzy or anything?"

She pulled away from him, glaring at the ground in embarrassment, "I don't know, maybe you should give me CPR to make sure I'm not drowning!"

"Maybe I should…" Lysander looked at her contemplatively. Dominique gave him a confused look.

She was _very_ confused by this statement until he stepped closer to her and ran his fingers along her jaw, tilting her face up to his. Her face went even redder than it had the whole day.

"What would you do if I did this?" he asked, and finally pressed his lips to hers.

Dominique almost passed out, but quickly regained her senses, trying to push him off of her. But even her small effort was in vain because he had already stolen her heart. It was her turn to surrender and she allowed Lysander to kiss her.

He finally pulled away and took her hand once again.

"Come on, it's getting dark." He seemed to walk with a new spring in his step as he led her out of the forest and back to the Burrow.

"Where have you two been?" Victoire demanded, "We've been looking everywhere!"

"We went for a little swim" Lysander said, "Do you have a problem with that Vicky?"

"Don't call me that, Lysander" Victoire gave him a dirty look, "Stay away from my sister."

"Aw, don't be like that." Lysander said jokingly at the same time Dominique said, "You can't control who I hang out with, Victoire."

Victoire looked a bit affronted, but did not say anymore.

"Come on." Dominique grabbed Lysander's hand once again and led him off towards the orchard.

She stopped once she thought they were deep enough into the orchard to be alone, and then lay down in the grass, gazing up at the darkening sky.

"What are we doing?" Lysander asked, lying down next to her.

"Counting stars." She answered quietly, "One."

She pointed up at the first bright star that appeared in the sky.

"Two." Lysander pointed at one that had appeared to the left of the first one.

"Three." Soon, there were too many stars in the sky to keep track of all the ones they had already counted.

"I can see Orion." Lysander said.

"No you can't, silly; Orion's only visible in the winter. There's the big dipper though." Dominique pointed out the constellation.

"If you look to the right of that, you know what I think I see?"

"What?"

"An ugly butterfly." That comment was rewarded with a blow to the stomach from Dominique.

"It was an iris. Jerk."

Lysander chuckled, "I know. I was only joking. It's a good memory, right?"

"I guess you're right." Dominique smiled at the distant memory from summers past.


	2. Chapter 2

The divination classroom was as warm and hazy as ever. Hermione almost felt suffocated as she stared into the teacup she was holding. It was a pointless jumble of nothing. She sighed in frustration wondering why she had bothered to sign up for this class in the first place. It was as much of a pointless jumble as the tea leaves in the cup.

"Oh, my dear." Professor Trelawney said as she peered over Hermione's partner's shoulder, "It seems you have some excitement in the very near future…" She gazed at Hermione with those big eyes of hers.

Hermione wanted to scoff. However, it was such a vague prediction and being friends with The Boy Who Lived himself, it really was to be expected to have 'excitement' lurking around every corner. 'Excitement' could include anything from rumors and girl drama and a necessity to maintain a reputation to almost being killed by the same psychotic murderer who killed Harry's parents.

Hermione walked out of the classroom feeling even more exasperated than she had been before Trelawney had spoken to her.

She headed down to dinner with Harry and Ron, but found that she could not sit still. Trelawney's prediction of 'excitement' was really getting to her.

"I'll meet you in the common room later." Hermione stated after a while of impatiently pushing around the food on her plate. She stood up and strode off, hearing Ron ask Harry what might have gotten her mad this time.

She strode out onto the grounds, though it was already dark out. Hermione just wanted to escape real life for a while. Maybe focus on something other then schoolwork for just a while.

But naturally her escape was short-lived due to the fact that someone already occupied her destination.

The moonlight played on Draco Malfoy's pale skin as he stared distractedly at the water of the Black Lake. Hermione backed away quickly, but he had already heard her.

Instead of the expected greeting of "go away Mudblood" or something to that effect, Draco just grunted at her.

Hermione stared for a second, unsure what this meant.

"I'm sorry but I don't speak Troll." She said.

"Really? I thought you were fluent in everything. That's unexpected from a bookworm like you." Malfoy retorted.

"I take that as a 'go away' then?" Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"No. You can stay. I was just leaving." His voice betrayed no emotion and he stared back out at the lake.

He didn't move to leave.

Hermione waited. Malfoy still didn't do anything.

"Malfoy…?"

"I wonder why…" Draco said quietly, "Man sees the truth but believes the lies…"

Hermione was completely baffled by this statement.

"Draco, what are you talking about?"

He looked at her as if he hadn't realized she was still standing there.

"Rumors and reputation." Came his reply, "The lies are those. But the truth… it's so blatantly obvious and yet they choose to believe the lies. Why?"

Hermione had no idea why Malfoy was being so philosophical all of a sudden, but she wanted him to snap out of it before he hurt himself.

"Draco, seriously, what are you talking about?"

"Do you believe you know me?"

"Well, I know your name and I know your personality pretty well, seeing as you enjoy harassing me and my friends." Hermione said hotly.

"There are things deeper than that." Draco was looking at her like she had just grown and extra head.

"What do you mean?" Hermione demanded.

"You'd like to know me well, but I've got things inside my head that even I can't face."

"That's where you're wrong Malfoy." Hermione's voice turned venomously cold. She'd had enough of this nonsense.

"I _wouldn't_ like to know you well because just plain _knowing _you results in things like this, apparently! I don't even like you, why on earth would I bother to get to know you well?"

"Why?" His voice had shifted. It was back to his usual drawl.

"Because I now know that talking in circles confuses you. I've baffled the Bookworm." Draco's smirk was illuminated by the full moon above.

"I loathe you Draco Malfoy."

"Oh, but you're standing out here aren't you? Next to the Black Lake. Alone. What might others think if they saw us out here? It might start a few rumors, don't you think? Might even ruin a reputation or two."

"The only reputation that will be ruined is yours. A snooty Pureblood hanging out with a Mudblood? Goodness, Draco, what would your parents think?" Hermione hissed vehemently.

"Come on, Granger. Don't be like that."

"Don't be you and then we'll talk." Hermione stalked away, "Get rid of your current reputation."

Draco watched as she left, feeling rather amused. Because in reality, he'd never be able to change. But then it hit him how un-amusing that thought was. He stared back out at the lake, knowing that something was wrong. Bothering Mudbloods was supposed to be okay. So why did it hurt so much to see Hermione Granger walk away from him?

**I have no idea… honestly I don't. I don't even ship Hermione and Draco! I'm Romione all the way. This somehow just turned into that. So… I feel like Hermione was a little out of character too :/ Anyways, enjoy… **


End file.
